PETALING JAYA: Universiti Malaya (UM) is the only Malaysian institution that has made it to the top 200 of the QS World University Rankings 2012/3 for the second consecutive year. It moved up 11 places to 156 this year compared to 167 in 2011 and 207 in 2010.

Congratulating UM, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said he believed that this was a direct outcome of a Cabinet's decision for the university to be chosen as the key player in international rankings.“A special monetary incentive was accorded to UM with the specific objective that it should be among the 100 best universities in the world by 2015. The fruit of that initiative is showing now,” he said in an interview.

Mohamed Khaled said that although a more detailed scrutiny of the criteria used was needed, the ranking results generally showed that the focus and resources invested by the research universities were paying off.

Intelligence Unit head Ben Sowter for QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, which conducts and compiles the annual World University Rankings, said 2,586 institutions were considered this year.

Sowter said UM was the best-performing Malaysian university in both the academic and employer reputation surveys, making it the global top 200 in both.

“It also improved its faculty/student ratio relative to its international peers, contributing to its improved position,” he said.The biggest climb, said Sowter, among Malaysian institutions was by UTM, which re-entered the top 400 after slipping down last year.

UM vice-chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dr Ghauth Jasmon said it continued to push for higher quality research and publications in the past year through its High Impact Research projects with the special funding.

“It is clear that UM's greatest gain has been in its total citations, which was our main weakness before this,” he added.

UTM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang said it had undergone a massive transformation since 2009 by focusing on graduate studies.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology topped the QS World University Rankings this year followed by Cambridge University and Harvard University.

Hi, QS and THE used to be in collaboration with one another, and it was only very recently that QS and THE have their own separate rankings. There is no right and wrong and you cannot objectively state that one ranking system is superior over the other, because both are true according to their own methodology. Have you checked their methodology? If you are talking about the Malaysian government, they refer to THE but still deviates from it. For example, LSE is known to be an extremely good school but it is not listed in the rankings. How about the Liberal Arts Colleges like the US? Rankings (Shanghai, THE, QS, ARWU) are all true according to what you're looking at, in which THE, QS, and ARWU being the popular ones. Rankings is just one indication for the quality of the universities for employers and researchers reference. You should also look at subject rankings, which is way more important than the overall one.

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